Ribble Valley Crossroads Care

Ribble Valley Crossroads Care is a domiciliary care service providing personal care to adults with a range of support needs, in their own homes. Not everyone who used the service received personal care. CQC only inspects where people receive personal care. This is help with tasks relating to personal hygiene and earing. Where they do, we also consider any wider social care provided. The service was providing personal care to 20 people at the time of inspection.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee autistic people and people with a learning disability the choices, dignity, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. Right support, right care, right culture is the statutory guidance which supports CQC to make assessments and judgements about services providing support to people with a learning disability and/or autistic people. We considered this guidance as there were people using the service who have a learning disability and or who are autistic.

Right Support:

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice. Where people lacked capacity to make specific decision, the service was following the best interest principles.

Needs were assessed, and care records developed with input from people and their relatives. Care records focused on desired outcomes and promoted choice and control, though some lacked detailed information relating to people’s medication, conditions and potential risk. We saw evidence support was tailored to meet people’s individual requirements and adjusted accordingly when care needs changed.

Staff offered positive encouragement to promote independence; and they knew how to protect people from abuse. People were actively supported to maintain links with family, friends and local community groups.

Right Care:

Staff were employed following robust recruitment processes. There was a good level of ongoing training and support, however staff competencies and supervisions had not always been carried out in line with the provider’s own policies. There were enough staff to meet people’s needs and keep them safe. Continuity of care enabled staff to build trusting working relationships with people. Staff treated people with dignity, respected people’s unique characteristics and communicated with people in a way they could understand.

The service worked closely with a range of health and social care professionals to improve people’s outcomes, and processes were in place to support people with their medication or eating and drinking if required.

We advised the provider to review incident, accident and safeguarding procedures to ensure appropriate action was taken and lessons could be learned to prevent re-occurrence.

Right Culture:

There was an in-depth staff induction which enabled the provider to share its ethos with new recruits, and good levels of communication and support helped instil positive values and behaviours. Staff told us they felt welcome to express concerns or seek help from office staff and managers at any time and spoke fondly about their experience working for Ribble Valley Crossroads Care.

People and their relatives had regular opportunities to give feedback about care received and commented positively about the service and staff. One relative said, “I feel confident. They know what they are doing. They are caring and very respectful.” A person using the service added, “I think staff are excellent. A smiley face is always lovely. They are all so pleasant and always happy to chat. I am happy about everything.”

Though audits and checks were in place, these were not fully embedded due to recent changes in management. The provider acknowledged areas of development within their monitoring systems and spoke about ongoing improvements and plans for the future.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Rating at last inspection

The last rating for the service under the previous provider was good, published on 4 July 2018.

Why we inspected

We undertook this inspection as part of a random selection of services rated Good and Outstanding.

Recommendations

We have made a recommendation about documentation relating to risk and people’s care, and improving auditing processes to ensure better oversight.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.